Brazilian entrepreneurs vow $200 million investment package

Brazilian businessmen that were part of President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s entourage during his visit to Cuba, promised to pour some $200 million into the island nation, sources close to the Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said today.

Brazilian corporate people and Cuban officials, who held a biannual seminar on trade and investment with the attendance of both countries’ Presidents, inked five investment agreements to develop tourist, pharmaceutical and oil projects.

Brazil’s entrepreneurs willing to make investments in Cuba will be entitled to get loans from their country’s state-run National Bank of Economic and Social Development (BNDES is the acronym in Portuguese).

Mario Vilalva, head of the Commercial Promotion Division at the Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, explained some of those deals have already made considerable headway while others remain in their initial stages.

One of the most advanced projects has to do with a $114 million investment to build four hotels –for a grand total of 2,500 rooms- in several of Cuba’s tourist circuits.

Furthermore, corporate Brazil is interested in bankrolling projects linked to the making of alcohol and other sugarcane byproducts, the purchase of Cuban technology in the pharmaceutical industry, genetic medications, the renewal of the island nation’s fleet of tourism buses and the production of nickel.

According to Mr. Vilalva, the possibility of Brazilian company Petrobras to start oil-seeking exploratory research in waters off the Gulf of Mexico –where Canadian company Sherrit and Spain-based firm Repsol are already working- was not tackled during President Lula’s visit to Cuba.

”Petrobras came to Cuba to do some exploration. The final decision is that there are no concrete possibilities as we speak to do business with Cuba. That doesn’t mean, however, that both parties won’t weigh possibilities once again in the future,” he said.

”They’re showing a great deal of interest, but there are no solid business deals right now,” Mr. Vilalva insisted.

Petrobras, a company that recently opened a representation office in Havana, has just signed a letter of intention with Cubana de Petroleos (CUPET) to streamline a number of oil facilities on the island.

In Mr. Vilalva’s own words, “economic cooperation was the nitty-gritty issue in the private talks held between President Lula and his Cuban counterpart Fidel Castro.”

In a brief comment made during the seminar in Havana, Mr. Lula said today’s globalized world needs “not only trade policies, but also the ability to join forces with what we’ve got, in a complementary way, in order to be able to compete on equal footing with the most developed nations, both economically and industrially.”